The American Mainstream’ Wants a U.S. Missile Defense; Guess That Makes its Opponents Extremists’

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday, the respected polling firm McLaughlin & Associates sent a message that should be read loud and clear in the Bush White House, on Capitol Hill and in media and other elite salons across America: The vast majority of Americans — seven in ten — strongly support the development of a national missile defense system.

The poll, which sampled 1,000 likely voters, is remarkable, among other things, for the fact that even those who identified themselves as “liberal” responded “Yes” by a clear majority (58.1%) when asked “Should the United States develop a missile defense system to guard the Nation from missile attacks from Iraq, Iran, and other terrorist states?” In addition, some 63 percent of Democrats polled likewise responded in favor of missile defense, as did a full 70 percent of African-Americans and 72 percent of women.

As a press release issued by the polling firm put it:

The public sentiment to develop a missile defense system is strong across all voting segments. More than 4 in 5 Republicans want a missile defense system developed, and nearly two-thirds of Democrats and independents believe the United States should build a missile defense system. Women are slightly more in favor of developing a missile defense system than men. Majority support for this national antiterrorist missile defense system extends across every geographic area, every ideological group, every age group tested, and is equally solid among African-Americans and whites.

Confirmation of Previous Opinion Research

McLaughlin’s results broadly confirm the findings of earlier polls and focus groups concerning the missile defense issue. For example, a poll two years ago, commissioned by the Center for Security Policy, the Heritage Foundation, the Claremont Institute and the Family Research Council was revealing not only about the breadth of support for the deployment of missile defenses (as much as 86 percent of registered voters) but the intensity of that support: Fully forty-six percent believed it to be an “urgent priority.” Only eight percent of the electorate was then opposed to such a deployment.

The fact that this poll registered even larger majorities in favor of deploying missile defense than the McLaughlin survey may have been attributable to the fact that, in 1998, the respondents were first asked whether they thought the U.S. military could destroy a missile if one were launched at this country. Only 27% of those polled correctly answered that the U.S. military would not be able to destroy a ballistic missile fired at the United States. Seventy-four percent either believed that the U.S. military could destroy the ballistic missile (54%) or said they do not know (20%).

When told the unhappy truth, 78% of those queried said they were “surprised” (45%), “shocked and angry” (19%), or “skeptical” (14%) of government documents that indicate that the U.S. military cannot destroy even a single incoming missile. Only twenty-two percent said that they were “not surprised at all.”

Insofar as there has still not been a sustained, nationwide effort mounted to expose the public to the full extent of their vulnerability to missile attack, it is entirely possible that the McLaughlin data actually understates how strong the American people’s support for anti-missile defenses would actually be if so informed.

The Bottom Line

While George W. Bush has properly declared that his policy decisions will not be predicated upon polls, it can only encourage him as he prepares to act on his oft-stated commitment to deploy national missile defenses “as soon as possible” that he will enjoy broad-based, bipartisan support from the American people when he does so.

This will be particularly true if Mr. Bush chooses to proceed in a way that will appeal to his constituents’ native common-sense and sense of fiscal responsibility. That would be the effect of his announcement in the immediate future that we will begin in six-month’s time to adapt what the Nation has already bought and paid for — namely, the Navy’s fifty-five Aegis fleet air defense ships — to serve as the infrastructure for a missile defense, first for our forces and allies overseas and, “as soon as possible,” for the American people and homeland as well.

At a minimum, the President, his advisors and the rest of us should take note of one unmistakable fact: It is the opponents of such a deployment of missile defenses — not the Administration and its allies — who are clearly “out of the mainstream” or, in the political vernacular of the day, “extremists.”